News & Research Archive

Three Things in Life you can count On

Aug 25, 2008

Yes, there are three things in life you can count on “Death”, “Taxes” and a “Lease coming up”. The beauty of a career in commercial real estate is that regardless of where the economy is we have the potential to make a deal. In the leasing business if the economy is going good, businesses will need to expand so we have a deal. If the economy is going bad, businesses will scale back their office needs and take smaller spaces or close their office so we have a deal.

Unlike our residential broker counterparts they do feel the ups and downs of an economy as well as the uncertainty of actually being able to do a deal because of the financial markets. Those of us that specialize in leasing are not impacting nearly as drastically.

So if you are a leasing broker today and are not doing well, what is the problem? First question to ask is what market am I concentrating on right now? Am I working the market sector where deals can be made in this market cycle?

If you are a working tenant rep financial institution business, clearly you need to refocus your attention on another market sector. If you are a tenant representative, you might want to refocus your attention on the sublease market. If you are a landlord representative, this might be a good time to take on more listings so that if there are fewer deals being made you have more of an opportunity to secure one of those fewer deals.

Let me end by saying, I have been in this business now twenty five years and there never has been a year that I did not have business and had a decent financial year to prove it. I did it by adjusting my business practices to meet the market. If you do not take time to reassess your role in a market cycle yes you can get hurt. But, successful salespeople all find a way to make money.